In general, contactless cards, coupons, banknotes, coins, and the like are used as payment methods for public transportation systems. When using coins among the payment methods, since various kinds of coins are used, there is much difficulty in counting coins.
Particularly when paying transportation expenses with coins, it is not easy to determine whether a paid transportation cost is a correct fare, and furthermore, it functions as a factor that increases a risk of an accident caused by a driver.
A coin sorting apparatus is disclosed in Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-0102511. The coin sorting apparatus includes a sorting housing in which an accommodation part in a circular shape is formed and coin grooves are perforated in a bottom surface thereof for each size of coin along an inner wall of the accommodation part, and a segregating rotating plate rotatably mounted on the accommodation part and configured to transfer coins introduced into the accommodation part along the inner wall of the accommodation part to discharge the coins through the coin grooves.
In addition, a coin counting apparatus is disclosed in Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-0106208. The disclosed coin counting apparatus includes a rotating plate configured to discharge coins using centrifugal force, a high speed transfer roller configured to discharge the coins again to transfer the discharged coins at a high speed using rotational power, and a transfer channel configured to guide the discharged coins toward a counter sensing unit which is known, wherein a curved part is provided at a front end of the transfer channel, and a shock absorber is provided on the curved part to absorb a shock of the coins and transfer the coins along one sidewall of the transfer channel when the coins discharged from the high speed transfer roller are introduced into the curved part.
Furthermore, a high speed coin counting apparatus is disclosed in Korean Patent Registration No. 0663636, and a counting apparatus using a coin and a method of controlling the same is disclosed in Korean Patent Registration No. 09109630.
Since conventional coin counting apparatuses having the above-described structures tend not to detect coins according to materials of the coins passing through coin transfer channels while sorting the coins, reliability of detection and coin counting cannot be improved.